Update from Other Systems - Nominal

The Datafile Software nominal ledger possesses very powerful features for incorporating data from other systems. Most users will want to update from the sales and purchase ledgers and perhaps from the payroll as well. In addition, however, you can update either direct from another nominal ledger, or indeed from any suitable Datafile database files such as the stock transactions file or the fixed assets system. This User Facilities option defines how these updates are to work.

In fact you have a major decision to take first. If you only want to update from the sales, purchase and payroll systems of this company, then you can take the standard update route. If you want to update from other files, or from more than one company’s data, i.e. if you run more than one payroll, then you need to take the multiple update route.

Standard Update or Multiple Update?

This decision is taken in the nominal ledger System Profiles. The second screen has options to define the pathnames of files used to store various sets of definitions — for financial summaries, user-defined transactions, and for multiple updates.

If you want to use the standard update facilities, leave the pathname for multiple updating completely blank — the <F3–Clear> key is useful for this.

If you want to use the multiple updating facilities, then give a pathname for the definition file (the file name must be in the standard 8.3 format, and must not exist as a file defined for some other purpose already).

The Update from Other Systems option of the User Facilities menu checks to see if there is a definition pathname in System Profiles. If there isn’t, then it goes into the standard update set of questions described below. If there is a pathname, however, it knows it must take the multiple update route, and you should follow the Multiple Update instructions below.